


a walk in the forest

by froggieyama



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (kind of), Alternate Universe - Historical, Breakfast, Domestic Fluff, Dreams, Elemental Magic, First Meetings, Flowers, Forests, M/M, Nature, Nature Magic, Soulmates, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25199743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggieyama/pseuds/froggieyama
Summary: a gift fic for imori for the oikawa exchange!dreams swallow tooru whole, until he finally gives into his urges and steps into the forest
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru/Sugawara Koushi
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40
Collections: Oikawa Fic Exchange Spring 2020





	a walk in the forest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Imori_Hikaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imori_Hikaru/gifts).



> prompts: flowers and morning routine

There was something about the smell of flowers, the gentleness of their presence in their room, that allowed Tooru to sleep well into mid-morning. He had spent most of the past few years away from home, on the other side of the world exploring what he had only dreamed of as a young child.   
  
He’d been born into a rich family, grew up on acres of well-trimmed lawns bordered by forests as tall as the sky. He’d been kept from the rest of the world for most of his impressionable years, protected from everything his parents saw ugly about the world. He had not yet learnt the smell of flowers or the warmth of another, had not yet met Koushi.   
  
The forest began to call for him when he was sixteen, gently curling itself around his fingers and settling itself in his mouth, his throat, his chest. It swallowed him whole before he’d even reached its border. Every night for several months he dreamt of a boy with unnaturally light hair, trails of moss and vines etched into his skin. Tooru had found himself in the library, searching in each and every book for what could only be described as something other than human. He never found it, upon later questioning his family explained they didn’t believe in what was said to live in the forest, but Tooru didn’t have that liberty. He knew too much too young and was now consumed by his desire to know more, to gobble up each and every tiny bit of information and keep it close to his heart.   
  
Eventually, the temptation to enter the forest outweighed his common sense. He could barely sleep then, mind overwhelmed with voices and the smell of something foreign, tied together with the constant feeling of dirt clogging his throat. He rose at the same time as the sun, allowing himself a few moments to be bare for its rays to bless him, and pulled on a loose shirt and his most casual pair of pants. It was late spring then, the air outside cool enough to wash over him like a wave, but he did not shiver. Not yet would he allow himself to show fragility.   
  
The soft tickles of grass on his feet were soon replaced with the coolness of barren dirt, clinging to his skin and muddying it. With each step, each further into the unknown, the tightness in his throat and chest loosened. Each breath became a heave of clean air into his lungs, each gasp shifting away the stale, stagnant nature of his old self.   
  
He stopped just as his hand came to rest on the first tree at the edge of the forest and turned back to look at his house. It seemed so small, perched upon the top of the clearing. It felt big, expansive, when he was walking its painfully empty halls. but as Tooru stood on the outskirts of the rest of the world, he realised just how little he had truly seen. He swallowed thickly, breaking the silence of the nature around him. Then, with one quick step, he let go of everything he’d ever known. 

  
  


* * *

He had walked for what felt like hours before he stumbled upon a clearing. It had gradually gotten lighter, the sun falling on the green of the scrub around his feet. Despite its unfamiliarity, it calmed Tooru to the bone. He noticed the dirt on his feet, and the torn leaves of plants he’d stepped on along the way, clinging to his skin as if it was a new home. It was worlds away from what he was used to. His parents had been so strict about cleanliness all his life, always fussing when he came inside with dirty hands or mud on his face, and it had always felt wrong. As if he belonged in the dirt and the mud, surrounded by the smell of freshly rotting wood and blooming flowers.   
  
The clearing was bright and warm. In the centre sat a small lake, bordered by reeds and an outcrop of rocks. Something about the rocks, sitting as they were, drew Tooru in. He stepped towards the water, getting close enough to dip his bare toes into the cool water. It was far too cold for him to venture further, but that didn’t stop him from washing the grime off his feet without a second thought. His hand brushed against the reeds as he walked around the lake, toes squishing into the mud. He couldn’t help but giggle at the noise - he’d never heard anything like it. 

As he got closer to the cave dug into the rock, he began to hear the voice that had plagued his dreams. The person was singing a language Tooru didn’t understand. He didn’t have much experience with languages other than his own, his family being as isolated as they were, but something in his gut told him this language wasn’t human. It was the way the voice drifted over the sounds, the almost-purr of the lower notes, that made Tooru come to the realisation that the person, the _creature_ , was beyond anything he’d ever known a human to be. 

The gentle crunch of the pebbles sliding against the larger stone beneath his feet alerted the creature of his presence. They stopped singing, but Tooru continued walking. There was a hitch in his own breathing - a swelling of nervousness before he swallowed - but he would not turn back now. He wasn’t even sure if he could find his way back from here on his own. What had guided him here had vanished back into the forest, it seemed, and left his cluttered mind in silence. 

His eyes fell on the creature when he rounded the corner. They were just like the one he’d seen in his dreams, though far more beautiful now he could see them in person. They were a little shorter than him, skin darker, eyes wider, with moss etched into their being like a tattoo. A tattered smock, sleeves ripped off and barely long enough to cover the creature’s thighs lead Tooru to believe that perhaps this creature before him was not as isolated as he had assumed.   
  
“Tooru,” the creature purred, stepping closer once, twice, until there were only a few inches between their bodies, “welcome home.”

* * *

Tooru rose to the smell of flowers and freshly baked bread. The world had so much to offer for him, and yet this was all he truly needed. He was older now, wiser, but had not yet lost his childish sense of adventure, his need to break free from the path so carefully planned for him.   
  
The life he had outside his estate was entirely separate from the one he had in it. When he was off working, he remained composed, collected, always looking at things from the perspective of what he ought to know. He travelled and acquired artifacts from ancient civilizations from all over the globe, remaining as respectful as he could be. Then, he brought them home for Koushi to look at, allowed the other man to run his fingers over the seams of history and draw out stories Tooru could never fathom on his own. Tooru had hated having to leave the spirit for work in the beginning, but he soon learnt that Koushi was content to lose himself to the forest when he could, and the guilt had fallen away. 

Tooru stretched, popped his joints with a groan, and stood up on shaky feet. He had yet to get used to the stability of solid ground again. 

“Tooru, love,” he called, purr still in his voice, “breakfast is ready.”  
“Coming,” Tooru called back, his smile clear.

* * *

  
The breakfast laid out on the table smelt like heaven. It wasn’t excessive; a platter of fruits and vegetables, some bread that is still hot from the oven, and some fresh milk, but Tooru loved it. Koushi always rose far earlier than he did, and had never once missed making them both breakfast. It was that monotony, Tooru thought, of falling into a human rhythm that kept Koushi here.   
  
“Thank you for the food, Kou.” Tooru pulled out a chair and sat at the table, across from the other man. Koushi was taller now, and a little less rough around the edges. He looked more human than he once did, but still had the charm of a forest spirit. The sprout growing from his head, luscious and green, bounced as he leaned forward to grab something to eat. Tooru couldn’t help but smile.   
  
They didn’t say much, only expressing how good the food was or telling the other what they planned to do for the day, but it was enough. And when they finished breakfast, Tooru pulled Koushi close, ran his hand along the skin of the spirit’s back, felt the ripples of moss growing across it, and grinned. They kissed there, in their kitchen, and Tooru knew.   
  
Knew no matter how far he travelled from Koushi, this was where he needed to be. No matter how much he craved adventure, craved the uncertainty of the world, he also craved Koushi, and the home they’d so effortlessly created together.

**Author's Note:**

> come scream to me about oisuga on twt at @ollie_delcan
> 
> thank you for reading :D as always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated


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